Elimination

Chafe Estate v. Chafe | 2017 CarswellNfld 285 | Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court (Trial Division)

Within his industry, [the forensic document examiner] explained that there are nine recognized levels of confidence which can be expressed by a forensic document examiner when addressing handwriting comparisons. These extend from “Elimination” at the lowest possible end to “Identification” which represents the “upper limit of confidence”. This category is reserved for circumstances where the document examiner “has no reservation whatsoever and, although prohibited from using the word “fact” ... is certain that the writer of the known material wrote the writing in question”.

The next level of certainty is that of “Highly Probable” which is defined in [the examiner's] industry as “very persuasive, yet some feature or quality of the questioned writing may be missing so an opinion of identification is not justified”.